Short fun game (immortal)

Moscow desperately needs health resources though. Agree that city #4 discussion can wait until we get #3 for horses though.

Played 9t. Just founded Novgorod at the horse site, whipped worker in St. Pete. Moscow grows back to 4 in 2t and gets Barracks in 1t. Pottery's done, Writing is 5t full-speed, but we need to save up for a couple.

There were suddenly 3-4 archers around St. Pete 1t, so exploration didn't go too well, but I didn't lose any units at least. Churchill's 4-promo archer took care of some of the barbs for me. Churchill might have completed the GW, since it was built FIDL the turn before the sudden appearance of barbs NE of St. Pete, but I'm not sure.

There's a banana north of the pig, but it's all jungled and pinched by London. Looks like there's quite a bit of continent to the north...

Neither of the AI's has founded a third city yet.

Nope, no GW for Winnie... nice set BBP!

I would switch Moscow on the gold for one turn so it grows as the unhappy faces wear off. We should have writing in five turns, so IW is still a long time after that... so I am puzzled as to where settle next... but first what to tech after writing? one possibility is COL as it opens monarchy in trade (if we go PH route), and we may attempt the Oracle (even for a bit of cash). we would need to trade for IW/monarchy/math/alpha. Other possibility is to go aesthetics (we can build zeus and pagode for cash with 100% bonus) , then maybe target the great lib (again, backfilling the important techs including IW in trades). But we don't have marble...

Moscow: I believe we should go chariot -> worker -> settler. We need that additional worker badly to hook up gold and corn, and start the cottaging (we needs those mines up too - except the desert one) . Maybe a couple would be better seeing as the AIs are late in rexing. We would need a library here as well, but it's the only place where to build settlers for now... so I would delay it a bit.

St Pet: chariot -> lib. I think we need an academy asap, and it's the best place to grow a scientist imo. Moscow can start working cottages in the meantime.

"Moscow is in desesperate need of health": really? without any, it's equivalent to full grassland + corn+ gold... I would play this capital any day... health will be awesome, but the more I look at that wheat site, the more I want to
Seriously, I won't agree on this, so you will just have to ignore me about that
If we really want to settle city 4 in the area, I prefer sheap/deer, on the stone... at least it can grow size 6 (size 6 is a dream for the wheat site before CS )

Ras

edit: I like one south of the northern banana... maybe put a settler there after city 4 and wait IW to settle... would suck to see an AI grabbing this...

Thinking further about the Wheat, I'm again starting to think it's not needed. We have access to all 4 types of steak (Cow, Pig, Sheep, Deer) + Banana which is pretty rare and will maybe help enough with the health.

Ras: You're right it's not a great city in the mid-term, but with a Wheat and a Gold it would surely pay for itself and even contribute for our tech rate. It would be a teeny-tiny-hammer pump on top of that (7 hammers!)

We're actually very very blessed with resources here, 2 early happy resources and 6 early health...

EDIT: Yeah 1S of the demi-English Banana was the first site to pop into my eye as well. Maybe that as 4th, Stone as 5th, then complete the block with 2 northern jungle Gem/Copper/Ivory/Banana goodness? IW will definitely become handy, for both the metal and chopping jungles... Vast ice expanses south and vast jungle in the north, some random Philistines could really piss in our cereal

One of the warriors is meant to move in-between those mountain ranges to spawn-bust/explore and I think the scout should immediately loop CCW towards the gems. Maybe we see more of the map before deciding on the fourth site. 1S of banana is ok, though it takes quite some time to get going (especially if we have to wait for IW for a while). This site doesn't effectively block anything, due to the mountain range - plus, it doesn't get any resources (we already grabbed the pig with St. Pete, there's another banana in the west). I was thinking of maybe even going SWW of marble, though that's really far. If the scout reveals some food and it looks like a good blocking site for the west, maybe...

No idea about tech, except I really don't like self-teching IW. Clearing the jungle later is fine, since it's not in our primary cities. Lack of metal until possibly as late as 500 BC sucks, I'll admit, but I think we're ok with chariots for barb purposes... Off the top of my head, I'd say we can go to PH first, and open up some possibilities with Oracle, COL next, etc. We're teching reasonably fast with the gold, and that'll continue with some early cottages, so I don't think there's a huge rush for Aesthetics. I think we should play a set through Writing and delay the decision... re: Oracle, though, I don't actually think Moscow can afford the turns wasted on wonders anytime soon. We need workers and settlers, some units, library, granary... It's got a full slate past 1000 BC probably...

I never know: does OB/TR help with auto-spread?

re: Oracle: I agree, that was just a suggestion in case we have nothing better to build (I agree, it's unlikely). Aesthetics: it's not optimal too to say the least. I would go directly for COL, trading for math/alpha/IW, then monarchy in a second time. Our interest is to be in bureaucracy sooner than later...

re: banana site: I agree too it's crap while we haven't IW... maybe settle sheep/deer, then put a settler in the area waiting for IW?

re auto-spread: you don't need to have TRs... you need to meet the conditions to have TRs... (OK, that's not clear )
ie, you don't need to have OBs effectively, but you need to either have a road to the city, or have a water road (river, unfogged coast) to the target city and sailing. Sailing isn't needed for "watery" auto-spread inside your cultural borders... If it's still not clear, ask a native speaker

RRRaskolnikov said:

re auto-spread: you don't need to have TRs... you need to meet the conditions to have TRs... (OK, that's not clear )
ie, you don't need to have OBs effectively, but you need to either have a road to the city, or have a water road (river, unfogged coast) to the target city and sailing. Sailing isn't needed for "watery" auto-spread inside your cultural borders... If it's still not clear, ask a native speaker

Click to expand...

Crystal clear! Got it.

BTW: yeah, Moscow should switch to gold for 1t. It just grew back to 3, I didn't really look at it this turn. I'm not sure what's best to build in Novgorod. It's not really hurting for a border pop, so I put a granary in queue... The new worker should road the FP SW of St. Pete for a TR first, I think.

^^ agree about roading that tile...

Another option tech wise is a beeline to monarchy for early HR... though I am not sure of its trade value... but Moscow would benefit a lot from it (double digit population in the BCs). (talked with Rusten of that game, that's his idea... I don't want to appear like a thief ... but I do want to share that suggestion with you guys)

When were religions founded? If it's late, we may have an outside shot at the oracle still, being industrious and all.

Seeing as Churchill founded hinduism, quite late I bet Problem is that you had to include two other industrious leaders

^ Actually 3 other IND leaders.

We might have a shot, which is part of the reason I like going straight for PH. It gives us a few options to evaluate later.

Has Judaism been founded? If not, I think we're good for at least monarchy, if not CoL. Gold helps a lot here Although we may have to chop some trees to make it safe... At least granary + corn will solve our current health issues.

So how about poly--priest--writing?

Why poly over med? planning on the great lib? or OR?

Yes GL. Or do we want meditation for philosophy? I don't mind either one really.

Honnestly, I don't like chasing wonders without resource, even if we are industrious. The oracle is a different case because it's damn cheap, but the GLIb without marble isn't that efficient. But even if poly costs more than med, it keeps options opened so why not.

I usually go Med in an Oracle rush to shave the turn of research, and I agree with RRRaskolnikov about IND < marble (big time)... I guess I don't really care either way. I'd vote Med, but if you guys want Poly, it's fine.

Fair point, let's go med. We don't need the GL with all the farms we'll be running anyways.

Thought about it a bit more. I don't see how we can get the Oracle before 1000 BC, unless we forget about another settler, which I wouldn't do... That's not gonna cut it on Immortal, with Gandhi and 3 IND leaders. Unless I'm wrong in my calc (quite hastily done in my head)... I think we need to do a test run and know what it entails exactly. I'd take REX over an Oracle attempt that's doomed to fail.

lurker's comment:

RRRaskolnikov said:

"Moscow is in desesperate need of health": really? without any, it's equivalent to full grassland + corn+ gold... I would play this capital any day... health will be awesome, but the more I look at that wheat site, the more I want to
Seriously, I won't agree on this, so you will just have to ignore me about that
If we really want to settle city 4 in the area, I prefer sheap/deer, on the stone... at least it can grow size 6 (size 6 is a dream for the wheat site before CS )

Click to expand...

The wheat site is great -- think of it as +2 food in St. Petersburg and Moscow. You can run wheat+gold+(maybe lake)+grassland hill and still have 2 surplus food. I'd settle it sooner rather than later.

I wouldn't rule out winning the sheep+wine either if you chop a wonder there (SoZ with ivory and IND for instance).



PS. The sheep+deer site is also good, but not urgent by any means.

Nice

@team: don't listen that Xteam noob...


OK, now I guess there aren't many people to follow me for city 4?
I won't argue against wheat city anymore then...

Ras